Using FreeBSD as Desktop OS

The artist drawing the GUI artwork had one too many ;)

No, it is a fade-in and fade-out animation.
 
Hi yuripv,
“Wobbly” means that when you move a window with the mouse pointer, it temporarily deforms (loses its shape). I believe the wobbly windows on KDE are implemented by mapping the image of the window onto three springs using differential equations.
Drhowarddrfine, LOL.
 
I'm seriously thinking of moving over to FreeBSD from MacOS as my primary. However after trying Gnome, KDE as well as fluxbox & openbox, I'm not finding anything with the similar polish and feel as MacOS. I'm not talking about the technical features. I'm sure that most of the features of MacOS can be replicated and even more better ones as well. I wish that I could put it into words..
 
Is it just me or are window managers these days jumping a little bit too much on the thin border bandwagon?
Normally I would like that but I just tried OpenBox running on one of my student's laptops and even though it looks great (very modern), it is almost impossible to actually grab a border haha.

Now Windows (10?) has very thin borders but it has a subtle difference. Even if the mouse is not exactly on that 1 single pixel, i.e if it is just over or just under it still grabs! Is this a limitation of X11 not sending through this event? I could understand that and accept that is why in the world of X11 we need thicker borders.

My students solution was "Oh, I just hold alt if I want to resize a window".

Seems... annoying ;)
 
knightjp said:
I'm not finding anything with the similar polish and feel as MacOS.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately you probably wont either. The cutting edge (Gnome 3) is a mess and once it becomes perfect, it will be replaced by Gnome 4 which will be entirely broken again. This happened with Gnome 2 -> Gnome 3 and was quite disappointing.

That said, you will not find polish but you *will* find consistency. Once you find something you can "deal with", it will never change. Compare this to macOS and you will see that Apple are quite happy to remove functionality in the name of "progress". I personally hate change (only in the world of computers) because in the world of computers, 99% of the time it only means additional regression, restriction and regret. ;)
 
MacOS has one thing: a style guide.
"Ok" and "cancel" are always at the same place. You can't simply cancel a requester in X11 by glancing at it. Sometimes these are diverging inside the same app!

That is a huuuuuge bonus.
 
Never had any "ok" - "cancel" confusions while using any of xorg applications, also there is no need to click something most of times, because pushing escape key is enough in most situations. Also, in GTK applications such buttons are located at the same place, most of times, while it is possible to configure position and sequence of such buttons in Qt applications. Also such buttons are common only in GUI configuration utilities and in some application settings... and if you use minimal WM-s, you won't see many of them, I cannot even remember where I can see such buttons while using my desktop with FVWM WM :).
Also, probably, that's because you get used to such buttons, and you're trying to find similar experience elsewhere. Besides, "Yes", "OK" and "Cancel" buttons reminds me windows® world much more... You'll find countless windows with such buttons there :)
 
knightjp said:
I'm seriously thinking of moving over to FreeBSD from MacOS as my primary. However after trying Gnome, KDE as well as fluxbox & openbox, I'm not finding anything with the similar polish and feel as MacOS.
Click to expand...

I'm using Enlightenment (not the ports version - it is buggy, but built from Git some month ago) on my primary FreeBSD laptop and Mac OS X on the secondary one. I can state that there are many things impossible in Mac OS X that I can do with E. Finally I fill more comfortable working on E now. But it takes time to manually install it and configure everything.
 
IMO, the best option to try, when choosing what WM to use, is x11-wm/fvwm2, If you'll manage to find out how its configuration file is working, then you'll never be limited in anything, because practically, it is possible to recreate almost any other WM functionality...
Also, of course it is obvious, that nonfree desktops are extremely limited and its design or functionality cannot be changed or improved (because it is optimized for "housewives" aka idiots "average users", in other words), including any "ok" button position, or titles, menus... colors, etc. Here is my fvwm config, it is commented well, also fvwm got good documentation, start from % man fvwm and you'll find almost anything you need.
 
Peter2121 said:
I'm using Enlightenment (not the ports version - it is buggy, but built from Git some month ago) on my primary FreeBSD laptop and Mac OS X on the secondary one. I can state that there are many things impossible in Mac OS X that I can do with E. Finally I fill more comfortable working on E now. But it takes time to manually install it and configure everything.
Click to expand...

+1 for Enlightenment built from scratch, recently attempted the same on OpenIndiana: E22 runs smooth, a very intuitive DE in its Unixish approach, and EFL is a less bloated API than Qt5 or GTK3+. Enlightenment_FM , Terminology, Rage, Ephoto are good to have applications, though I'm still preferring mc, xterm and mpv to the first 3.
Here's a recent shot of my E22 desktop with SciFi theme

DoK0Ec4XkAIClAz.jpg


As for *BSD for the moment I'm staying on fvwm2 and fluxbox which are my favourite, plus a bit of vtwm, icewm, cwm, Lumina, flwm, notion, olvwm, wmaker from time to time. Yes all very weird stuff, like the weirdo I am.

I think ILUXA is right in telling fvwm is the best UI ever created: at least, it's the most powerful and hackable WM ever created, capable of returning a fully-customized complete DE out of relatively simple config written in plain text
 
sensucht94 that is a seriously cool screenshot. Ever since about 2008 when I first used Linux I’ve preferred docks full of icons over the Microsoft taskbar paradigm. I actually used Bodhi Linux briefly until I realised they were withholding source code in violation of the GPL; some user asked for the code on their forum and just got a tirade of abuse from a dev. I wonder what they were hiding. Last time I checked they didn’t have a forum at all...
I just installed macOS Mojave on my 12 inch MacBook and the dark mode is very appealing to look at. It’s an exciting time to experiment with different OSs.
 
TBH I've never found MacOS interface limiting in any way; in terms of usage. And I really like the layout. I know the stock window management needs a quite a bit of work, but I have solved that using an app called Moom. Other aspects work the way I would want them too. I'm completely comfortable with the OS and the only thing I find limiting is that, I can't make my system into dark mode. I'm still on High Sierra. I haven't been able to move to Mohave, because I run MacOS on a Hackintosh and a certain Nvidia driver isn't available yet. It seems Nvidia are taking their own sweet time with this one.
I've tried a whole bunch of Linux distros with various degrees of Desktop Environments. So I'm well aware of Enlightenment, i3wm, fluxbox, openbox, Gnome, KDE. I like KDE and Openbox, I sort of feel they lack something that I can't really put into words. I would like to find a way to combine Openbox and Compiz. I'm not a developer. I'm just an average user.

If I have to move to another OS, FreeBSD is my choice rather than Linux. That is for sure...
 
AlexanderProphet said:
Ever since about 2008 when I first used Linux I’ve preferred docks full of icons over the Microsoft taskbar paradigm.
Click to expand...

Personally, I can't stand icons or docks with them on my desktop. I like plain text and minimalism. I do have a taskbar but hide it till my mouse hits the bottom of the screen. This is how I like mine to look and best suits the way I work:

fonts.png
 
Trihexagonal, that is a power user desktop if I ever saw one. I like the clock and the moon phase thing. Useful for werewolves/lunatics etc. What’s the lil music player called in the bottom right?
I have a Thinkpad too. I got it refurbished ex business for £130, I’m so happy with it. Great sturdy/rugged machine. I tried TrueOS on it but it couldn’t suspend/hibernate so now it has Ubuntu.
 
AlexanderProphet said:
I like the clock and the moon phase thing. Useful for werewolves/lunatics etc.
Click to expand...
It's not useful for lunatics and werewolves only,
because moon phases affects everything in nature,
including humanity, which is the part of nature too.
It affects on all earth existence. Personally I'm using
astro/wmmoonclock dockapp, nice and useful
dockapp, that shows moon phases, it shows also some
other info, when you click it, like Rise and Set time, see % man wmmoonclock.
PFkhKNA.png
 
Just to clarify, I was joking, it wasn’t meant maliciously (hard to convey in plain text). I knew the moon affected things like tides and possibly women’s menstruation too (?) and if I had stayed in school I would probably know several other uses for the moon...
 
As we’re on the subject of macOS generally, I can’t recommend the 12 inch MacBook highly enough. You don’t realise the value of an ultra portable until you’ve owned one. I wish I could install something more Unixy on it, that’s the only thing. But the display is beautiful, the battery lasts about 8 hours, it’s almost silent, and so easy to carry around. I use it for writing and web browsing and some light coding.
I know macOS isn’t “free as in freedom”, but you end up forgiving it because it’s just so good.
I sometimes think how Richard Stallman of GNU, has philosophised himself into a corner. As a geek he must be desperate to get his hands on some Apple tech but he’s just not allowed cos of the ideology. What’s the probability he has an iPad hidden somewhere? :D
 
AlexanderProphet said:
What’s the lil music player called in the bottom right?
Click to expand...
Probably multimedia/xmms as you can see in the output of top(1)

AlexanderProphet said:
Just to clarify, I was joking, it wasn’t meant maliciously (hard to convey in plain text). I knew the moon affected things like tides and possibly women’s menstruation too (?) and if I had stayed in school I would probably know several other uses for the moon...
Click to expand...
Some religions also rely on the Moon.
 
Trihexagonal said:
Personally, I can't stand icons or docks with them on my desktop. I like plain text and minimalism. I do have a taskbar but hide it till my mouse hits the bottom of the screen.
Click to expand...
Mine is a black screen with a mouse cursor. i.e. cwm. No icons, no window borders/titles, no taskbar ...etc. Exec key and first couple of letters to identify a program and Enter to launch it. Most windows maximised and alt-tab between them. 1 pixel gap at the top of screen to left mouse click on (desktop) to show/switch to any from a list of active windows. Alt left mouse to move a window, alt-right mouse to resize. Mostly browse, so in effect full screened browser + its tabs is pretty much my desktop. I have a calculator (html) tab, text editor (html) tab. Use the browser to play mp4's, online email tab ...etc. Otherwise mostly mc/cli (tmux). Looks bland, but works well.
 
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